negative development technique: summary

Surprisingly many people lack the confidence to choose the right developer or to adapt their
development technique to suit their own preferences. Instead, they go along with whatever their
favourite guru of the moment recommends, and blame themselves if the pictures don't come out right.

But it isn't hard to establish and follow your own preferences. It begins by looking at the print:
which prints of your own do you like most? What is important to you: grain, tonality, sharpness...?
It is then a question of working backwards from your favourite prints to establish the best possible
development technique for you.

Even if you lack the experience to make absolute judgements, or to make the finest possible
prints, you can always tell a better print from a worse print, and this is the starting-point for
this module: instilling the self-confidence needed to judge your own prints.

Illustration from 'Negative Development Technique'

Each person has different priorities and (which is equally important) different equipment, but the
foundations of negative development technique, once you have chosen your film and developer, are always
the same. They are dilution, temperature, time and agitation. This module looks at all four; at how to
achieve maximum consistency in development technique; and at which ones to vary, and how, in order to
get the best possible negatives. It runs to 17 pages (over 5000 words) with 20 pictures.